Sorry faithful followers, but I’m no longer going to be rolling out the monthly pound-for-pound rankings here at Keyboard Kimura.

You’ll have to get your debatable material elsewhere, because I’m done with rankings, and that’s saying something because I have always been a big supporter and advocate of the endeavor. I’ve just come to realize that there really is no point to putting out rankings, because no matter what, you’re going to piss off someone, and be forced to explain yourself over and over and over.

This revelation and shift in stance comes on the heals of a pair of rankings-based articles I’ve read over the weekend.

One — by ESPN’s Brett Okamoto — talked about the lightweight top 10 and whether recent Bellator title winner Michael Chandler deserved a spot after beating perennial resident Eddie Alvarez; the other — by MMA Fighting’s Michael David Smith — was his list of the top 10 pound-for-pound female fighters in MMA.

One was on point with just about everything I think about rankings — and highlights the difficulty of creating such a list — and the other left me scratching my head, cursing under my breath, and realizing how absolutely arbitrary and pointless rankings really are.

My quick thoughts on both: Michael Chandler isn’t a top 10 lightweight, and Smith is way off base in ranking Ronda Rousey as the #5 P4P female fighter after just four fight, and I say that as a massive fan of the former Olympic judoka.

Within the current MMA structure, rankings are pointless.

The UFC doesn’t generate their own rankings because (1) they don’t want to publicize where they slot fighters from the various divisions, and (2) it would give us fans and critics one more thing to complain about if they did. There is a general guestimate of where different guys sit based on whether Dana White says they’re “in the mix” or not, along with their track record in the cage, but there is nothing produced for mass consumption.

It’s probably a good idea.

Rankings don’t legitimately tell you who is going to win a fight; unranked fighters have beaten top 10 opposition countless times, and what really separates the 17th ranked lightweight from the 25th ranked lightweight besides eight other fighters?

The Chandler-Alvarez fight illustrates that to a tee, as Alvarez sat T-4 with Ben Henderson in the most recent edition of the USA Today/SBNation Consensus Rankings while Chandler was unranked. At the end of the night, it was the unbeaten former University of Missouri wrestler who emerged victorious, leading to Okamoto’s question of where he should land the next time the 155-pound class is slotted into position.

His stance was that while Chandler’s victory was impressive and deserves recognition, it shouldn’t move him into the top 10, a logic I agree with completely. One win does not a top 10 fighter make, even if that one win came over a guy who was inside the top 5 for the last two or three years.

It’s the same reason Smith’s female pound-for-pound list is so perplexing to me.

Like I said, I’m a huge Ronda Rousey fan — I think she’s a tremendous competitor, a great ambassador for the sport, and talented as hell — but beating four opponents with only moderate experience doesn’t get you placed ahead of former champions like Marloes Coenen, Tara LaRosa, or Victoria’s Sarah Kaufman. Rankings are based on what you’ve done, not what you might be able to do some day, and in that regard, Rousey hasn’t come close to accomplishing what the women she’s ranked ahead of have done thus far.

And here’s where you come to see why rankings are absolutely pointless:

1) You could make a reasonable argument that Rousey’s four sub-50-second submission victories over since March are paramount to the pair of wins Kaufman has earned in that same time period. I wouldn’t agree with you, but there are plenty who would.

2) She is without question the right opponent to pair with current Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate at this time, regardless of the fact that she hasn’t truly earned the title shot like Kaufman has. I’d bet dollars to donuts that it’s Rousey, not Kaufman, who faces Tate in her first title defense, if it every gets around to happening.

Kaufman is unquestionably ahead of Rousey in the 135-pound rankings — especially considering Rousey has yet to compete in the weight class — but Tate-Kaufman 2 is nowhere near as interesting a fight right now as Tate vs. Rousey.

Rankings-schmankings; you make the fight that draws the most eyes and makes the most money.

A lot of people won’t like that, but it’s the truth. It’s the same reason the UFC moved forward with Jon Jones facing Lyoto Machida for the light heavyweight title at UFC 140 instead of keeping Jones on the sidelines while “#1 contender” Rashad Evans heals up; making a fight that sells trumps making the fight that makes sense with the rankings.

This isn’t boxing, where sanctioning bodies put out their list of contenders and champions are pushed into mandatory title defenses or lose their belts. Because there are no rankings, there is no definitive way to say who is next in line; it’s a fluid situation.

So why do we torture ourselves with rankings?

We’re never going to achieve a universal consensus in one division, yet alone across seven weight classes for the men, two for the women, and the mythical pound-for-pound lists for each gender. People are always going to disagree, and think you’re a moron for thinking differently than they do, even if your logic holds up.

Maybe Michael Chandler is a top 10 lightweight; we won’t know it until his next fight or the fight after that or maybe we’ll never get a conclusive answer. None of that changes how much I’m looking forward to his next fight.

The funny thing is that the only place in the rankings where we can come to a consensus is the only place that really matters — the top.

Whoever is at #1 has a belt around their waist and a target on their back; everyone else is just a contender looking to claim that position.

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